Saturday, August 11, 2012

Popcorn Social

We had a popcorn social at work this week. I was in charge of it by default because my coworker who normally would have been in charge had a migraine and my boss was in a staffing meeting. I could see the situation so I didn't wait for someone to say I needed to do it, I just got the popcorn machine and got started. One of the residents rolled up on her motorized chair to see what I was doing, offer advice, and generally supervise.

Our machine is a medium sized portable one that is similar to the ones in movie theaters. The whole point is get popcorn that smells and tastes like movie popcorn. I had never used the machine before and that was her first question when she saw me reading the directions. After I assured her that I was indeed qualified to use the popcorn machine and that I had read the directions on both the machine and on the popcorn packages; she regaled me with memories from past popcorn socials. She told me about the first popcorn social that she had at the previous home she had lived at. The activities department had just gotten a new popcorn machine like the one I was about to use. They had never used it either and they set it up under the smoke alarm which was located high on the ceiling. They burned the oil and the smoke alarm went off. Three fire trucks full of firemen showed up in front of the building. The worst part of it was that there was not enough popcorn for all the firemen.

Our social went off without a hitch and everyone enjoyed multiple bags of delicious popcorn although I think that my friend was disappointed that no firemen joined us at the party.